Back in 1978, I was admitted to Northwestern Polytechnical University.

Chapter 285 Have you heard of Contra? Let's build a game console!

Qin Liang doesn't seek power. Right now, the market economy is in a phase of rapid, unregulated growth. He provides a steady stream of profits to the various departments under his jurisdiction, supporting their development and expansion. However, this also creates imbalances. The university doesn't want to dampen the enthusiasm of the departments, but if this continues, the less popular majors and departments might become resentful. If the conflicts escalate, the consequences could be unimaginable.

Northwestern Polytechnical University is likely to be a disorganized mess.

Therefore, why not integrate all the school-run factories into a group? This would make management easier and also facilitate coordination. Qin Liang said to contribute 30% of the profits; which school-run factory manager would dare to disobey?
"Isn't 30% a bit too much? Just give us 10%." Principal Ji said, his face beaming with joy.

"Without Northwestern Polytechnical University, there would be no departments under us. Even if we become successful, we can't neglect our school. It's like a child...a student who leaves the school and becomes successful in the future, but still has to think about giving back to the school."

I almost said the child had left the parents' embrace. I can't say that, absolutely can't say that. Otherwise, wouldn't the direct superior be considered a parent? Wouldn't they also have the right to demand a reward?
Leader Pang wore a helpless smile. "You little rascal, when you were arguing with Lao Huang just now, you acted like a hothead, but now you're so shrewd."

“Liangzi, some of our projects require a lot of funding. Although our school-run factory is making money, it's not enough to cover all the profits we earn, even if we invest it all in research and development.” Just then, someone in the room spoke up: “Now, we have to give 30% of the profits to the school, which will delay our research and development!”

Qin Liang looked over and saw that the speaker was Zhu Xianghua, a computer science teacher and the person in charge of many projects.

Computer science majors are making money and have even built computer factories, but with the development of other projects, such as CPUs and GPUs, which are very expensive, they want to separate from the mathematics department and establish their own independent department. They have their reasons for this; they want to invest all the money they earn into research and development and don't want to be burdened by the mathematics department.

From their perspective, they are not wrong. After all, the Eastern chip industry is lagging behind, and now is a good opportunity to catch up!
Qin Liang glanced at him: "If you don't have enough money, apply to the school! The school takes 30% of the profits from our Datang Group, what are they going to do with it? Of course they have to support the school's development. Aren't you computer science majors part of Northwestern Polytechnical University?"

These words stunned everyone present. Principal Ji gave a helpless bitter smile. Qin Liang had dug a pit for himself, and he hadn't even realized it before jumping in.

This money goes in one hand and out the other; the departments that gave the money might even want more!
How to strike a balance is the school's business! It has nothing to do with Datang Group. Qin Liang is trying to trap us!
Leader Pang laughed too. Luckily, he hadn't mentioned asking for money; otherwise, Northwestern Polytechnical University could have submitted a report, handing over ten million in profits while requesting twenty million for research projects...

"Liangzi, does the Datang Group need some experienced managers? If so, you can pick anyone from our school!"

"Need not!"

"You have your own candidate?"

"Well, one is fine with me," Qin Liang said. "Anyway, our Datang Group is just an empty shell. As I said, each of the school-run factories operates independently. By the way, the computer science department needs to develop a set of financial software. Each school-run factory needs to use this software for office work and summarize the data for me once a month."

So simple?
There was no cashier, no accountant, no vice president, no office manager, not even a secretary. All Qin Liang had to do was look at the data once a month... In fact, given his lazy personality, it was hard to say whether he would even look at it!

This Qin Liang is really...

“Liangzi, isn’t this a bit shabby? What if you need to use the Datang Group’s identity to go out on business…”

"That's easy. We'll temporarily draw personnel from whichever department is needed. Generally, we'll draw them from the school-run factory. If anyone dares not to cooperate, I'll take over their financial control."

"Ok."

Qin Liang's decision not to hire any subordinates is a smart move. At this point, countless people would want to get involved, and even Leader Pang has his preferred candidate. Now, Qin Liang doesn't want anyone; he just plans to set up a shell company so that no one can place their people there.

We can select and expand gradually in the future.

"Gentlemen, is this meeting finally over?"

"Yeah, it's really over this time. How about we... go eat and celebrate?"

"No, I can't worry about that now. Professor Zhu, how's your GPU project progressing?"

Although the display chip was handled by Huaxin Company, Huaxin Company was actually affiliated with the computer science department. Zhu Xianghua probably thought of making it independent in order to raise money for this project.
"The tape-out has already been completed."

"So fast?"

"Following your technical roadmap, Engineer Yu quickly led a team of top engineers from Intel to develop Huaxin No. 1. This display chip only integrates 32 rendering units and can perform 160,000 calculations per second. This chip is only for verification purposes and does not have much practical use. It still needs to be developed and iterated."

Speaking of this, Zhu Xianghua's mood was extremely heavy: "According to Engineer Yu's plan, after testing the initial HuaXin No. 1, there will be HuaXin No. 2, HuaXin No. 3, and it is expected that HuaXin No. 4 will reach the real practical application stage. It is expected that the internal components will be integrated into 256 rendering units, and the cooperative operation between these units will be more perfect. The units can not only draw triangles, but also perform rendering. However... all of this will cost money!"

Suddenly getting a graphics card, especially a brand-new 3D graphics card with the latest technology standard, isn't that easy. This thing is even more expensive than a CPU!
If the computer science major weren't desperate, why would it need to become independent?

"Were our initial graphics cards really that bad?"

"That's natural. The screen resolution can only reach 320x240. This resolution is simply not suitable for graphic design. It should be at least 800x600, and preferably 1024x768. It can only output 16-bit pseudo-color. The color should be at least 32-bit true color."

Resolution is an important indicator of image quality. In later generations, many monitors were upgraded to 4K, and even the crippled versions could reach 3840x2160. The product of these numbers is the number of pixels. The more pixels, the more things can be displayed.

Even a basic mobile phone from a later generation will have more pixels than this!
So... this first generation really is unusable, but... it's a shame to waste it...

Qin Liang's mind raced. Was this kind of image quality really useless?

of course not!
In his mind, he seemed to recall the hustle and bustle of some place, where someone was shouting "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, right, baba," and the little figure on the screen was jumping around with the operation. What was the screen resolution of this arcade game that was popular all over the streets back then?

If I remember correctly, it should be 256x240! Our graphics cards now have a higher resolution than the arcade machines, and CRT TVs of this era generally had a resolution of 640x480, half the horizontal and half the vertical resolution—exactly the resolution our current graphics cards can provide. So…

A bold idea just popped into my head.

“Let’s go study computer science. I have a way to make use of this display chip and even turn it into a blockbuster product with annual sales exceeding one million.”

"Millions of RMB or US dollars?"

“One million units!” Qin Liang smiled. “The price per unit doesn’t need to be too high, $199 will be enough.”

So that means... two small goals?

Zhu Xianghua's eyes widened, his gaze sparkling: "Liangzi, if we can really sell this many, we can not only recover our sales costs, but also make a huge profit... At that time, we won't need Northwestern Polytechnical University to provide funding anymore. We can hand over 30% of the profits and continue to invest the rest in research and development! What can we do with this kind of useless product?"

Qin Liang smiled and said, "Of course it's a game console... cough cough, a home computer!"

Now that we've risen to power, Nintendo has nothing to do with us anymore!
Nintendo's famous Famicom was launched in July 1983. At the time, the Japanese called it a home computer, but it was actually a home game console.

Prior to this, the dominant player in the home video game console market was the American company ATARI, which launched the ATARI CVS game console in 1977. Unfortunately, it encountered the Atari crash of 1982 and never recovered.

Nintendo's Famicom, having overtaken ATARI, was launched on July 15, 1983, and quickly captured the market, selling over three million units in less than a year.

At the time, Nintendo, with Mitsubishi's technology, independently completed a custom IC design that outperformed other consoles. As for the price, in order to lower the price, Nintendo promised Ricoh that it would order three million ICs over two years, which reduced the price of each IC to two thousand yen.

If we release our own game console within six months, we can be more popular than Nintendo! We'll follow Nintendo's path and leave Nintendo with nowhere to go!

Computer Science Major. "We already have the display chip. If we pair it with a low-end 8-bit processor chip, we can create an advanced game console. As for the storage device, we can make it into a cartridge and embed various game storylines into the cartridge. These are the few ideas I've come up with so far."

Qin Liang looked at everyone, his eyes sparkling: "The first one, I call it Contra. The game is set in 2631 AD, two years after a meteorite crashes. An organization called Red Falcon has armed the crashed island into a base for launching a war. Our protagonist enters the base to eliminate the enemy. The protagonist starts with a pistol... It belongs to the shooting game category."

Contra, a memory of an era for those born in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s!

The Famicom could be played by plugging it into a TV, or in arcades at roadside game centers, and it was even later ported to personal computers!
Qin Liang gave a detailed introduction to the game, even describing the appearance and movements of each character. He talked about the game for a full two hours.

The classic up, down, down, left, right ...

"The second game is Mario Bros. The story of this game is that Bowser's clan invaded the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnapped Princess Peach. Our players need to control Mario, or his brother Luigi, to overcome various levels and finally rescue Princess Peach."

Speaking of this, Qin Liang first drew a picture of Mario, the classic plumber image that has stood the test of time.

"Liangzi, I never expected you to know all this!" Zhu Xianghua exclaimed in surprise.

"Ahem, this isn't very well done yet. To make a game, you still need a professional artist. Our Northwestern Polytechnical University doesn't have an art major. We can look around and see if any teachers or students from other majors nearby have the skills. If not, we can also look for one at another university."

Modern games have low-quality graphics and few pixels, but that doesn't mean they can be careless. American gaming giants have been rejected by users and even caused the entire industry to collapse because their game development was too rough.

Our Northwestern Polytechnical University's game consoles are either not made at all, or they are made to be the best in the world. Moreover, we are only in the early stages now. When Huaxin No. 2 and Huaxin No. 3 come out in the future, the game graphics will be clearer. We need to make clear and large images now so that game porting will be easy in the future.

In the 1960s, Northwestern Polytechnical University had two calligraphers teaching, but at that time it was only an atmosphere of calligraphy education. It was not until 1988 that a calligraphy education team was established, and in 2003, an undergraduate major in calligraphy art was opened, transitioning from calligraphy to painting and calligraphy, and then to fine arts.

Art-related matters will have to wait until the new millennium; for now, there are only regular fine arts majors.

Upon hearing Qin Liang's words, Zhu Xianghua nodded: "Yes, no problem, we'll find a professional to come over!"

"Next up, the third game... Eliminate blocks."

I originally wanted to talk about Tetris, but now I'm wondering, why call it Russia? What does it have to do with Russia?
In June 1984, programmer Alexei Pajitnov invented this simple game to test the performance of computers. It consists of seven different shaped blocks that are randomly eliminated by moving, rotating, and placing them.

Don't let its simplicity fool you, it's a timeless classic! When Nintendo got their eye on this game, they spent a whopping five million dollars, and for every machine sold, they had to give Nintendo an additional fifty dollars to secure the license for Tetris.

Now, all these classic games belong to us!
Everyone listened to Qin Liang's introduction, which was very simple, but... indeed very interesting!
"Qin, I never expected you to know so much about games. I have a feeling these games will become a huge hit!" Yu Youcheng said excitedly.

“Yes, I can’t wait to play!” said engineer Luo Yang beside him.

"No rush, game development takes time, and we also need to complete the patent application as soon as possible."

It's uncontrollable in China; those shameless manufacturers only know how to copy others. But it's different abroad; they value intellectual property rights, so at least for now, they have to put on a show.

Our game console will suddenly appear and completely squeeze out other game console manufacturers. We can't give them any chance to take shortcuts.

“Qin, I want to take charge of this project,” Luo Yang continued.

“Okay, then I’ll leave it to you.” Qin Liang nodded. “For the computer science department, I’ll allocate ten million yuan to you first. If that’s not enough, we can talk about it later. You can choose the R&D personnel you need yourself.”

This guy must be itching to play! Being able to do what you love is the greatest happiness, and we have to support him!

"Thank you! Don't worry, I will be able to integrate the hardware within three months. Software integration will require computer professionals to speed things up."

“We’re fine with it too,” Zhu Xianghua said.

As a result, the originally planned six-month development cycle was compressed by half. Driven by the urge to play the game, everyone displayed tremendous enthusiasm for their work. From that day on, Luo Yang never went home and stayed in the laboratory doing research and development.

"Liangzi, shouldn't we give this game console a catchy name?" Zhu Xianghua asked.

Okay, it's name selection again!

This is easy too!
"Let's call it Huaxin FC, which is short for Family Computer," Qin Liang said.

"it is good!"

A combination of Chinese and Western styles, this name is good!

To the east, an island nation.

"We at Nintendo must develop a groundbreaking electronic product, a home video game console that no other manufacturer can replicate for at least a year!"

Hiroshi Yamauchi, the head of Nintendo, looked at Masayuki Uemura, the engineer in front of him, his face full of pride: "We must demonstrate the strength of our island nation, the strength of Nintendo, and let those outdated products from ATARI go to hell!"

"If we want to develop a groundbreaking game console, the hardware we have is not enough. We need to design our own chips, which requires a lot of time and effort, especially funding."

"Don't worry, we can afford it."

"However, this means that our game consoles will be very expensive. Even if it is spread across one million game consoles, it is still a terrifying number. In addition to research and development, the production costs will also be very high."

"It's okay, we can win with sheer volume. With over two million units a year, are we still worried about not being able to spread the costs?"

"Our island nation's current game console market is only about three million units in total!"

"That's because we don't have Nintendo's game consoles," Hiroshi Yamauchi said confidently. "Our domestic market will expand rapidly, and every household will have a game console. Moreover, we will enter the United States and Europe. Our island nation's products will become popular all over the world!"

“Okay.” Masayuki Uemura nodded. He was only in charge of development, not investment. If it really lost money, it would just be Nintendo’s bad luck.

"We don't have chip design capabilities ourselves, so we need to find other partners."

"We have to find someone from our island nation. As for Silicon Valley... Hmph, they can't even compete with an Asian. I don't trust them anymore."

"Okay, then let's go find Mitsubishi."

　PS: Contra and the Famicom.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)